The Troop (16 page)

Go on,
he’d mouthed to Kent.
Keep eating. Enjoy it.
When Kent came back to himself, the cooler was empty. The persistent internal suck had ebbed to a muffled quaver in his gut. It was more than he’d eaten in his entire life. Guilt settled into his bones like lead. He pictured his father hovering over the scene with an accusatory eye.
You don’t get it, Daddy,
he’d wanted to say.
You don’t understand what I’m going through.
I understand weakness, son. Prisons are full of weak-willed men.
Afterward, Kent had snuck down to the ocean to clean his hands and face. The cold water pinkened his fingers. even at that hour, the mainland was a flurry of light and motion. He cupped water in his hands and walked back to the cooler, wiping his chocolaty fingerprints off the handles.
on the way back to the fire, he’d found Shelley lingering beneath the leaves of a weeping willow. Kent curled a fist and settled it under Shelley’s chin.
“Say anything and I’ll kick the shit out of you,” he whispered.
“If you say so.”
Kent took a step back. Something in Shelley’s placid expression nearly made his knees buckle.
“You know what, Kent?” Shelley said. “Your breath stinks like shit. like cotton candy that someone took a big piss on. Can’t you smell it?”
Kent
could
smell it. The treacly-sweet stink with its ammoniac undertone nearly made him gag.
“I mean it, Shel. Keep your lip zipped.”
Kent plodded back to the fire and struggled into his sleeping bag. But by morning, despite his devouring the cooler’s entire contents, the hunger pangs had already returned.

NeWTON glaNced
at his Timex again: 9:02.
reggie Watters’s skiff should have puttered up to the wharf a half
hour ago. It was not like mr. Watters to be late. Before his retirement,
he’d been the logistics coordinator at the local Fedex depot; the time of
day was practically imprinted in his blood. Watters’s favorite parlor trick
was to look at his bare wrist when you asked what time it was—Watters never wore a watch—and give it to you to the very minute. Freaky. He might be a minute or two off nowadays but still, for him to be a half
hour late? That was a rare occurrence indeed.
“You think something happened?” newton said. “mr. Watters is
what, seventy?”
“Do you think we could swim back?” ephraim said.
newton scoffed. “Are you nuts? With these currents? They run the
Atlantic Ironman Triathlon off Baker Beach.” He pointed in the general
direction of north Point. “I went with my mom once to watch it. Guys
were staggering out of the ocean. Their teeth were bashing together so
hard I could hear it. most of them puked, they were so exhausted. And
those were
athletes.
Grown-ups. And it was only a few miles. From here
to shore is twelve miles.”
“There are sharks, too,” said Shelley.
Their heads swiveled. Shelley’s vulpine face was pointed toward the
slate-gray water, his expression unreadable.
“oh, bullshit,” said ephraim.
Shelley’s scarecrow shoulders joggled up and down. “Whatever. my
dad’s seen plenty of sharks. He said one time a couple of oystermen
caught a great white down around Campbellton. It swum into Cascumpec Bay after a storm. Dad says when the oystermen slit its belly
open, two full wine bottles slid out onto the dock.”
Shelley’s dad was a lobsterman, so it could be true.
ephraim made a fist and slugged his thigh. “Could we make a raft
or something?” He pointed at oliver mcCanty’s boat. “or try to get the
motor working on that? What do you think, max?”
“Why wouldn’t we just wait?” max said. “He’s only a half hour
late—”
“Almost forty-five minutes, now,” newton said.
“It’s probably nothing,” said max. “maybe he’s constipated.” This earned a laugh from the others. ephraim said: “old man Watters
is
a total tight-ass.”
Thunderheads advanced. The boys watched the sky, enrapt. Thunder rolled across the water and echoed back on itself: a sound that was
somehow feathery and alive. The clouds shaded purple to jet-black and then whitely incandescent, creased with lightning, billowing up like huge lungs inflating themselves. They spread across the water like a determined battalion. rain washed down from the leaden clouds to tint
the air beneath them a misty gray.
“maybe old man Watters knew a storm was coming,” said max.
“maybe that’s why he hasn’t shown up.”
newton said: “Why not just come early then? He knew what time
to come. Why leave us out here with a big storm coming through?” “We don’t know it’s a big storm . . .” max said uncertainly. Soon they spotted the silvery shroud rolling across the water—
which itself had taken on a brooding hue. It stretched over the ocean in
a menacing canopy, pushing back the blue sky and blotting out the sun.
The water bloomed deep red.
“Shit, it’s bad,” Kent said thickly. “We have to take cover.” They picked their way up the beach toward the cabin. newton cast
a panicky glance over his shoulder. The silvery pall was advancing at a
terrific pace. Its contours had settled into a definite shape. A diaphanous
funnel connected the water’s surface to the corpulent black thunderclouds above; it rocked side to side like a hula dancer’s hips. A cyclone.
newton recalled that one of those had touched down in Abbotsford
a few years ago. It tore through the saltbox shacks lining the shorefront
cliffs, smashing them to matchsticks. It picked up million-dollar yachts
owned by rich American cottagers and flung them about like a child
tossing his toys during a playroom tantrum.
“We’ve got to get inside!” he shouted over the banshee wind. “or
underground.
Fast!
”
By the time they reached the cabin, the shaker shingles were slapping against the roof—a brittle
racck! racck!
like the clatter of dry
bones.
As one, they hesitated at the door. The dead man was in there.
Scoutmaster Tim was locked in the closet. It was like revisiting the
scene of a murder—one they’d all sworn in a pact to never talk
about.
lightning daggered through a bank of roiling purple clouds and forked sharply into the ocean. The water lit with a mushrooming sheen
as if a tiny atom bomb had gone off below the surface.
newton said: “We
have
to get inside. It’s going to hit us any minute.” “We need to take cover, but not in there,” said Kent. His face was
bleach-white except for the jaundiced flushes painting his cheekbones.
“I don’t want to see that man again.”
ephraim jeered: “You wanted to see him bad enough last night,
didn’t you?”
“Scoutmaster’s in there, too,” said newton.
Kent set his body in front of the door. A trivial gesture, like having a
scarecrow guard a bank vault. The wind rose to a breathless whistle that
ripped around the hard angles of the cabin, making a ululating note like
a bowstring drawn across a musical saw.
“They’re sick,” Kent said simply.
“Sick?” said newton. “Kent, one of them is
dead.
”
“Him, then. Tim.
He’s
sick. The whole place is sick.”
“How about this, Kent? How about
you’re
sick.”
It was Shelley who spoke. The boys almost missed it: the wind tore
the words out of his mouth and carried them away over the whipsawing treetops.
newton said: “What? Who’s sick?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Shelley said, louder now. “
Kent.
He’s sick as a dog.
last night I saw him—”
“Shut up!” Kent almost sobbed. “You shut your dirty mouth, Shel!” “last
night
,” Shelley said, enunciating each word with utmost care,
“I caught Kent eating the food. He stole the cooler and took it down to
the water. By the time I got there, he’d eaten it. He—”
Shelley was opening his mouth to say something more when Kent
strode forward and dealt him an openhanded slap to the face. “You shut your lying fucking mouth. I’ll
kill
you, you crazy little
fuck.”
Shelley just stood there. A trickle of blood ran from his split lip
like heavy sap from a tapped maple tree. Did he even notice, or care?
The empty vaults of his eyes filled with vaporous white, reflecting the lightning that flashed over the bluffs. They became the glass eyes of a
toy clown.
“He did it,” Shelley said softly. He didn’t have to speak very loud
anymore: the boys were attuned to his every word. “Yes, he did. Ate
all our food. He couldn’t help himself—could you, Kent? That’s why I
didn’t say anything at first—I felt
sorry
for you, Kent. You’re sick. You’ve
got the worms.”
Kent sagged against the door. The effort it had taken to slap Shelley
seemed to drain his meager power reserves.
“We’re not going . . . in,” he said haltingly.
“listen, Kent.” ephraim spoke with cold menace. A brick-hued flush
was draining down his cheeks to pinken his neck. “You ate our food.
Fine, whatever, it’s been done. But I’m not standing out here waiting
to get crisped by lightning. So I’ll tell you what—take a quick count
of the teeth in your mouth. Then get ready to kiss about half of them
good-bye, because if you don’t get out of my way in about two seconds,
you’re going to be picking your pearly whites off the ground.” Without waiting for an answer, ephraim laid his shoulder into
Kent’s chest. Kent folded like a lawn chair. ephraim barreled through
into the cabin. The sickening sweetness hammered him in the face—the
air inside a decayed beehive could smell much the same.
Wind screamed through the gaps in the walls—the sound of a thousand teakettles hitting the boiling point. A swath of shingles tore off
the roof to reveal the angry sky above: bruised darkness lit with shutter
flashes of lightning. The wind curled in through the new aperture to
swirl scraps of bloody gauze around the cabin like gruesome snowflakes.
“We have to get to the cellar!” newton said.
“What about Scoutmaster?” max shouted back.
They all turned to Kent, who had just dragged himself up off the
floor. lightning lit the sky and seethed through every crack and slit in
the cabin.
“He’s sick,” Kent said.
ephraim said: “You’re sick, too!”
“I’m not!” Kent held out his hands—they did not make for compel
ling evidence of his claim. “I’m not fucking
sick
!”
“max,” ephraim said. “Is Kent sick or not?”
“I think maybe so,” said max—not because he wanted it to be so,
but because there was no other answer for what he was seeing. “I’m
sorry, Kent.”
“What a fucking shock!” Kent snarled. “The Bobbsey Twins
agree!”
The wind hit a momentary lull. In that dead calm, the boys heard
Tim’s voice calling them from the closet.
“I
am sick.
“
Kent pointed at the door. An expression of smug elation was plastered on the strained canvas of his face. “You see? You
see now
?” max knelt at the closet and tore the strip of duct tape off. Who
the hell had put it there? He started yanking the tea towels stoppered
under the door—then stopped abruptly. What if something squiggled
out from under the door? The Scoutmaster’s fingers, even, gone thin
and witchy like long pointed wires?
“There’s a big storm coming,” he said to the door, to the Scoutmaster. “It’s already here.”
“I can hear it.” Tim’s voice was weird. “What you should do is get
some candles and blankets and head down to the cellar.”
“What about you?”
“I think . . . I’ll stay right here, max.”
The calm hopelessness in his voice sent a volley of cold nails into
max’s chest.
“Why?”
“You know why, max. Are any of the other boys looking bad?” “Yeah, I think Kent is.”
“I’m not
sick
!” Kent screeched pitifully.
“You shut your mouth or I’ll shut it for you,” ephraim said with
calm contempt.
The wind dropped to a brief lull. Tim’s voice could be heard
clearly.
“You have to be careful,” he said, sounding immensely tired. “Whatever this is, it’s catching. I don’t know how. But it can be passed
around . . . round and round . . . I’m so hungry, max.”
Thunder crashed overhead like massive two-by-fours being
thwack
ed together. The hair at the nape of the boys’ necks stood at attention. A string of blood trailed under the closet door. The ventricles of
max’s heart ran with ice at the sight.
“You’re bleeding,” he whispered.
“Am I?” Tim did not sound surprised or alarmed. “I don’t know
where it could be coming from. I don’t feel it at all. now go on, max.
Get down to the cellar. Go, hurry.”

EVIDENCE LOG, CASE 518C
PIECE B-17 (Personal Effects)
Lab journal of Dr. Clive Edgerton [Original audio

recording, pre-transcription]
Recovered from SITE A (220 Makepeace Road, Summerside,
Prince Edward Island) by Officer Brian Skelly, badge
#908

Test subject 13. Alpha series.
CHIMPANZEE (Marshall BioServices; breeding batch RD-489) Age: 3 Years, 7 months. Female.
Subject’s pre-test weight: 105lbs

/Date: 09.22/
OBSERVING RESEARCHER: DR. CLIVE EDGERTON
09:00 I introduced the modified hydatid [Genetic Recombination Y8.9-0] via injection. Subject is alert and energetic. Enjoying the use of its large enclosure with swing bar, reflective steel mirror, and splash pool. Subject is evidencing no overt signs of distress or pain.

10:00 Subject state is unchanged.
11:00 Subject state is unchanged.
12:00 Subject state is unchanged.
01:00 Subject state is unchanged.
01:54 Subject displaying signs of agitation. Pacing its enclosure. It issues a series of vocalizations . . . shrill doglike yips.
02:13 Pacing continues. Vocalizations climb to a high and possibly pain-stricken pitch before softening. Subject is scratching its posterior aggressively. Blood observed in small quantities.
03:09 Subject has consumed all foodstuffs placed in its enclosure. Approximately 5lbs peeled and diced fruit, 1lb dried mealworms, 5lbs root vegetables. Equivalent to 10% of subject’s total body bles. Equivalent to 10% of subject’s total body 03:07]. Subject failed to masticate food fully. Subject choked on fibrous tubers. Subject regurgitated said tubers. Shortly thereafter subject consumed them again.
04:00 Subject continues to scratch its posterior aggressively. More blood. Half a pint lost? Possible risk of anal fissure.
05:00 Scratching has largely stopped. Prominent indentations under the ribs indicate rapid weight loss, although at perhaps a slightly slower rate than that registered in both rodent and feline test subjects. Weight loss still far too rapid to have any practical applications.
05:23 Visible folds of skin now gird the subject’s pelvic brim. Eyes sunken into skull. Tissue degradation evident. Subject’s demeanor placid and seemingly unconcerned. Hydatid has narcotizing effect? [post-edit note: see
H. diminuta
transfection case study]
05:45 A large hydatid has extruded from the subject’s anus. Approx seven inches long. Significant tissue damage, swelling, and redness evidenced at extrusion site. Possible anal prolapse. Subject appears to be in no evident physical pain. Hydatid now approx one foot long as of recording . . . two . . . now two and a half feet. 05:50 Subject paces enclosure. Movements sluggish and hesitant. The extruded worm—now five feet long—is trailing from subject’s anus. Hydatid is thicker toward midbody: diameter of a medium-gauge electrical cord.
05:52 Hydatid has fully extruded from subject. Approx ten feet in length. It lies in a cochlear coil on the bare cement. Subject seemingly unaware it has passed the worm. Eyes vacant and glazed. Bumping into walls. Visibly disoriented.
06:12 A bloody froth emits from subject’s mouth. Thick, creamy lather resembling milk foam. Subject evacuated froth with surprising force—hard enough that a copious quantity of blood simultaneously ejected from subject’s nose. [post-test update: investigation of froth showed it to be teeming with dwarf hydatids] Subject is seemingly unaware of trauma.
06:30 Definite prolapse of anus. Severely hemorrhaged fistlike section of lower colon plainly visible. Dark purple in color. Subject exhibiting no evident signs of distress.
07:00 Subject lies down heavily on nest of hay and sleeps.
08:00 Subject continues to sleep. Rapid aspiration of lungs.
09:00 Subject continues to sleep. [post-test update: upon consulting microphone rigged to pick up ambient sound inside the enclosure, a definite squirming sound could be heard between 09:13 and 09:16. Hypothesis: sounds emanating from
within
subject?]
10:10 Subject wakes suddenly. Eyes quite wide. The visible white portions are networked with burst blood vessels. Subject is in deeply agitated state. Clawing at face and body. Subject is gibbering uncontrollably.
10:12 Subject calm again. Hangs listlessly from playswing.
10:14 Subject sits in play pool. Splashes water upon self apathetically. Water tinted red with blood from bodily wounds. Subject appears to be developing skin-surface lesions. Swellings noted on chest and arms and legs.
10:16 Subject pulling off hanks of fur. Subject staring at said hanks in a stunned and remote manner.
10:17 Subject is ingesting own fur. Subject is tearing off fur from arms and stomach and neck. Subject is ingesting more fur. There is blood . . . quite a lot of blood.
10:42 Subject steps out of pool. Moving with great difficulty. Ribs very prominent now. Outline of subject’s skull visible beneath thin skin. Much fur has been forcefully removed from body and face. 10:43 Subject staring into steel mirror. Subject appears to be examining itself. Subject is pawing the mirror gently.
10:45 Subject attacks mirror. Pounding it with great force. Subject leaves bloody prints on the steel. The subject is screeching and screeching and smashing fists into the mirror as if wishing to shatter it, shatter the reflection.
10:46 Subject moves away from mirror. Subject lies on concrete of enclosure. Subject emits low groaning sounds. Also hissing sounds.
11:00 [Dr. Edgerton exits observation booth. Dr. Nathan Erikson undertakes observational role]
11:15 Subject  .  .  . suh-suh-subject is  .  .  . Jesus. Jesus Christ . . . subject . . . subject is . . . subject is
not
a subject anymore. I mean, holy God,
is
she? How could she be? Subject is more bone than anything. Subject  .  .  . Jesus, you poor thing. You poor fucking thing, you  .  .  . I just  .  .  . Clive, you bastard  .  .  . this is  .  .  . oh, Jesus. She’s trying to move. Subject  .  .  . she is  .  .  . she is trying to crawl over to something. I don’t know what . . . what the
hell
is that? Subject is . . . oh, Christ. Oh this can’t . . . subject clearly has a prolapsed anus. This is where the worm—I can now identify the coiled shape on the floor as a worm—where the worm must have exited her body. The subject is making her way toward the worm. The worm is long and white and greasy. The subject’s body and face are covered in lesions. They look like very large and terrible bee stings. Some are the size of golf balls. The subject’s mouth is opening and closing on nothing.
Nothing.
She’s bitten through her tongue. The subject is
hissing
—I do not believe she is making this noise herself. I believe the worms are making this noise somehow. The subject has made her way to the evacuated worm. The subject is toying with the worm  .  .  . flicking at it with a finger  .  .  . the subject  .  .  . oh dear God, dear God don’t
do that
 . . . oh . . . oh . . . the subject is . . . the subject is eating the worm. The subject is shoving the worm into her mouth. Force-feeding herself the worm. She’s eaten the worm. She’s eaten it all. It’s gone. The subject is mewling. Drowning-kitten sounds. She is mewling and lying still. Her lesions are pulsating . . . I think I can see . . . fuck no . . . Jesus. Jesus Christ . . .
CLIVE!
11:23 [Dr. Erikson exits examination booth. Dr. Edgerton reenters]
11:24 Lesions appear to be breaking open all over subject’s body. Hydatids must have escaped the intestinal walls. They entered seams between pockets of subject’s muscle strata. They are presently exiting from fissures eaten through the subject’s swollen skin. They are smaller than the worm that exited the subject’s anus. Threadlike specimens.
11:28 Several large-ish specimens are breaking through the flesh of subject’s cheeks.
11:32 Subject drags itself to a standing position. Subject is reeling around clawing at self. Subject is tearing off swathes of infected flesh. Stark bone visible at subject’s left elbow. Subject seems largely unaware of bodily devastation.
11:36 Subject is tearing a long strip of flesh off forehead. Eyes nearly white. Cataracts? Ocular occlusion? Blood running freely. Subject making no sounds to indicate pain or suffering. Methodically peeling flesh. Several white threads can be seen wriggling in mangled tissue of forehead.
11:40 Two large hydatids break through the lens sacs of subject’s eyes. Worms infested the corneal vaults. Three-inch hydatids, quite thick, protrude from subject’s eye sockets, wriggling rather animatedly.
11:42 Subject blindly consuming own stripped flesh. 11:47 Subject immobile. Worms braiding into each other on exterior of subject’s body. Engaging in procreation?
11:50 Subject exhales heavily. Chest does not rise again.
11:55 Subject assumed deceased. Worms continue to exhibit movement, although not so energetic. 12:15 Exterior worm movement has ceased. Subject’s lower abdomen continues to pulse faintly. 12:33 Large quantity of worms evacuated from subject via anus and mouth.
12:40 All organisms deceased. Bio-decontamination and disposal processes initiated. Test concludes.